


Just A Little Misunderstood

by Topaz_Eyes



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Gift Fic, Multi, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-24
Updated: 2006-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-04 04:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/pseuds/Topaz_Eyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Little Misunderstood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kyasuriin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyasuriin/gifts).



> Written for kyasuriin based on the prompt "She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous."

She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous.

Unfortunately, around Remus Lupin that's all the time anymore.

Nymphadora Tonks can't help it—when she sees him her pulse flutters, her hair brightens, her heart melts, and her legs turn to proverbial jelly. Before she knows it she's bumping her shins on the table leg. Or she's knocking over umbrella stands, or she's literally sending knives flying his way when she's helping Molly prepare meals.

She wonders if he notices, and is just being polite when he smiles at her; or if he's secretly laughing at her foibles behind those inscrutable brown eyes.

She's twenty-four years old for Merlin's sake. Yet here she is crushing on the man who used to mind her as a tot, like some vapid teenager obsessed with Witch Weekly.

She knows he's too old for her; his hair's more grey than brown anymore. She knows he's too poor; she has robes in better condition that she uses for cleaning rags. She doesn't care if he's too dangerous; danger comes just from being an Auror.

She still loves him.

And at least all her practice with Healing spells will come in handy some day, she thinks as she points her wand at yet another spectacular blue and purple bruise on her elbow; another Remus Lupin-inspired mishap, this time pulling the door closed on her arm.

But she doesn't count on the idea that perhaps someone else would have captured his heart first.

Least of all her cousin Sirius.

They were once, and still are ostensibly, friends, she knows that. She's spent more than one evening drinking and reminiscing with them in the dank and hoary drawing room, laughing at their old tales from Hogwarts.

Indeed as she watches Remus laugh and his hands gesture wildly while recounting their past exploits, she feels her adoration only deepen.

But after she witnesses Sirius tend to Remus' full moon injuries--touching him with a tenderness she'd never thought possible--she wonders.

Soon she notices all the looks between them; all the casual brushes of hands and shoulders when they think no one is watching, and the way Sirius waits for Remus to return from his Order missions.

They do not kiss, or embrace in her presence, but suddenly she's sure they do that too, when the house is empty and the nights are too cold to sleep alone. It's not a stretch to imagine them in bed together, naked limbs wrapped around each other and breaths falling in tandem; anchored in a shared loss that she could never understand.

With a sinking heart she realizes she cannot compete with all the years of madness, all those years of misery apart. She cannot begin to fathom the darkness of the Dementors' clutches, or the equally dim time spent wandering in the mist of loneliness. Remus can. Sirius can. She cannot.

It is not her place to intervene in that which she does not share.

So reluctantly she relinquishes her claim. For now.

And is only mildly surprised to learn that she no longer acts nervous anymore.


End file.
